Integrating rich tasks - Activity 1.1
To go back to the introduction to this series of professional development activities, click here
What makes a task rich?
To help to answer this question we suggest that you try some unfamiliar problems yourself. In this activity you are first asked to spend some time working on a problem, ideally with a colleague, before trying to identify what we mean by a 'rich' task and what would make doing the particular problem you have studied a 'rich' activity for your pupils.You will need the following resources:
- List of attributes of rich tasks: Rich tasks.doc
- Blank 'rich task' template: RichTaskTemplate.doc
- Suggested NRICH problem aimed at KS1 - Eggs in Baskets
- Zipped folder* containing exemplar template for Eggs in Baskets and associated video-clips: EggsInBaskets.zip
- Suggested NRICH problem aimed at KS2 - Got It
- Exemplar template for Got It: RichTaskTemplateGotIt.doc
*You will need to save the zipped folder to your computer, then right-click on the zip folder and "extract" the files. Inside the folder "Eggsinbaskets" is a Word document. The Word document contains links to the video-clips.
What to do:
- Try one of the suggested problems on your own or with another colleague.
- Look at the short list of attributes of a rich task described in Rich tasks.doc . Discuss how they link to your own experiences when solving the problem.
- Use the blank template (RichTaskTemplate.doc ), which lists the attributes of a rich task, to make your own notes about why the problem you have worked on could be described as a rich task. Remember that a rich task does not have to have all the attributes and much will depend on how it is used in the classroom.
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Join with other colleagues and compare your template with theirs.
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You might like to finish by looking at the completed template for the problem you tried (RichTaskTemplateEggsinBaskets.doc in EggsinBaskets.zip or RichTaskTemplateGotIt.doc ). These represent our own experiences of using the tasks in classrooms so they may look diffferent to your own. There are of course many answers. It would also be worth looking at the notes section of the problem on the website ( Eggs in Baskets notes or Got It notes).
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